One important aspect to delivering satisfactory care to patients within a hospital setting is monitoring different biological indicators used to diagnose medical conditions. For example, the careful monitoring of blood pressure, heartbeat rate, and EKG can help determine a patient's current health and future chances for recovery. Traditionally, this monitoring has been achieved by attaching sensors to a patient and then connecting these sensors to monitor units which display the sensor readings.
A sensor cable has been the simplest and most reliable means of connecting these sensors with a nearby patient monitor. However, these cables tangle easily, limit the distance of the patient from the monitor and can become damaged over time.
More recently, wireless communication methods have been used between the sensor and the patient monitor, overcoming many of the disadvantages presented by traditional cable systems. Some typical examples of these wireless systems can be seen in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,748,103; 5,862,803; 6,441,747; 6,544,174; and 6,850,788; the contents of which are herein incorporated by reference.
Generally, wireless medical communications systems have included two popular types of system architectures: simple independent systems that transmit directly to a sensor monitor, such as U.S. Pat. No. 5,862,803, and more complex hospital-wide telemetry systems having sensor networks throughout a hospital, such as U.S. Pat. No. 6,544,174. Simple wireless sensor systems often include sensors that transmit medical data to specialized monitors near the patient. However, these systems are designed for use with only a few sensors and therefore tend to inefficiently use bandwidth. Further, using many of these units within a hospital can lead to interference between transmissions of nearby systems.
The more complex medical telemetry systems often include wireless receivers throughout the hospital connecting to a central server computer, allowing sensors to transmit data at nearly any location within the hospital. Additionally, these wireless transmitter systems are often designed to make more efficient use of the designated bandwidth and so are less likely to cause interference with nearby units. However, the size and complexity of these systems dramatically increases the expense for a hospital. Further, such complexity tends to reduce the reliability of the data transmissions, as well as the overall reliability of the system.
What is needed is a wireless communication system for medical sensors that combines the reliability of the simpler wireless sensor communication systems with the efficiency and reduced interference found in more complex telemetry systems.